"been praised for staying true to the comedic nature of the series, for its entertaining writing, and for the detail to which the background material is explained. However, some reviewers found the game mechanics to be simplistic and uninspiring compared to other science fiction roleplaying games on the market. On 14 February 1998, the night before the tenth anniversary of the show's pilot episode broadcast, BBC Two devoted an evening of programmes to the series, under the banner of ""Red Dwarf Night"". The evening consisted of a mixture of new and existing material, and was introduced and linked by actor"
"with 11.9 million). Later on in the same evening, a special flashback episode averaged 10.3 million viewers, and peaked with 11.2 million. The following day, the anniversary week was rounded off with another fully live episode (the second after 2010) with 9.97 million viewers watching the aftermath of the reveal, the Beale family finding out the truth of Lucy's killer and deciding to keep it a secret. ""EastEnders"" is the most complained about programme on the BBC. It has received both praise and criticism for most of its storylines, which have dealt with difficult themes, such as violence, rape, murder"
"by listing his notable achievements in television (particularly ""Cheers"") then introduced each subsequent guest by repeatedly listing Wendt's achievements (insinuating that all of his guests for that night's show played the role of Norm on ""Cheers""). In 1998, ""Late Night"" aired a fifth anniversary special in prime time, mostly consisting of clips from the first five years. It was taped in the ""Saturday Night Live"" studio, also in the GE Building. The special was later sold on VHS tape. In 2003, a similar tenth anniversary special was taped in New York City's famed Beacon Theatre and later made available on"
"attracted criticism as it was broadcast near the fifth anniversary of the Lockerbie bombing. The storyline drew the soap its highest ever audience of 18 million viewers. The revamp was a success and ""Emmerdale"" grew in popularity. Throughout the 1990s, ""Brookside"", ""Coronation Street"", ""EastEnders"" and ""Emmerdale"" continued to flourish. Each increased the number of episodes that aired on a weekly basis by at least one, further defining soap operas as the leading genre in British television. Since 2000, new soap operas have continued to be developed. Daytime drama ""Doctors"" began in March 2000, preceding ""Neighbours"" on BBC One. In 2002,"
"of famous figures of the age. In addition, the series is remembered for the poignant ending of the final episode. Despite initial concerns that the comedy series might trivialise the events of the war, the series won widespread acclaim on its release, and won the British Academy Television Award for Best Comedy Series in 1989. It has since become regarded as a classic television sitcom, and in 2000 was placed 16th by industry professionals in a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes compiled by the British Film Institute. However, some historians and politicians have criticised it for presenting"
"NBC's biggest television show after the 1998 ""Seinfeld"" final broadcast. It dominated the ratings, never leaving the top five watched shows of the year from its second through tenth seasons and landing on the number-one spot during season eight in the 2001–02 season as the latest sitcom in the U.S. to lead the annual Nielsen primetime television ratings. ""Cheers"" spinoff ""Frasier"" became a critical and commercial success, usually landing in the Nielsen Top 20 – although its ratings were overshadowed to a minor extent by ""Friends"" – and went on to win numerous Emmy Awards (eventually setting a record for"
"Britain's Best Sitcom Britain's Best Sitcom was a BBC media campaign in which television viewers were asked to decide the best British situation comedy. Viewers could vote via telephone, SMS, or BBC Online. This first round of voting was conducted in 2003, after which the BBC published a list of the top 100 selections. From this list, they produced a 12-episode television series broadcast by BBC Two from January through March 2004. The series was a retrospective that examined the history and qualities of the contending programmes. In the premiere episode, Jonathan Ross summarised the progress of the poll, and"
"included, and was ranked eleventh. The British Film Institute's Screenonline called the episode's ending ""unexpectedly moving"", and noted that, unusually for a comedy programme, it was repeated as part of a serious commemoration of Armistice Day: for its 80th anniversary in 1998. The series' overview from the website of UKTV's channel Gold, which airs repeats of ""Blackadder"", calls the final episode ""a seamless blend of gallows humour and rich poignancy"", and ""a fitting end to an iconic series"". In his segment advocating for ""Blackadder"" to be voted ""Britain's Best Sitcom"", the broadcaster and journalist John Sergeant called the final sequence"
"longest-running of any British television series. The series finale, entitled ""Respect"", was aired in two parts and was dedicated to ""the men and women of the Metropolitan Police Service past and present"". The finale storyline concerned gang member Jasmine Harris being involved in the murder of fellow member Liam Martin who died in the arms of Inspector Smith after being stabbed. Jasmine is then gang raped because she talked to the police and when Callum Stone found the person responsible he was held at gunpoint. Of the title for the finale, executive producer Johnathan Young said ""It's called ""Respect"" and"
"repeated as part of an otherwise wholly serious BBC2 Armistice Day programme without anyone batting an eyelid."" The series won the British Academy Television Award for Best Comedy Series in 1989. In addition, for his performance as Captain Blackadder, Rowan Atkinson won Best Light Entertainment Performance. In 2000, the series was placed 16th by industry professionals in a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes compiled by the British Film Institute. In 2004, championed by John Sergeant, the whole ""Blackadder"" series came second in the BBC poll to find Britain's Best Sitcom with 282,106 votes. Journalists and historians have"
"two containing specially made editions of the programme: ""The Very Best of Have I Got News For You"" (2002), a compilation of highlights from the first 12 years of the show, from the beginning up until the episode made after Deayton hit the tabloids. The running time is just over three hours long, and there are several hours of extras, including, among other things, running commentary of the whole presentation by Merton and Hislop. Also featured is a clip of Terry Wogan on ""Room 101"", nominating the programme as one of his pet hates. In addition, interviews with political figures"
"world's longest running sitcom. The commercial station ITV had popular successes with ""Rising Damp"" (1974–78, sometimes called the best of all ITV sitcoms), ""Man About the House"" (1973–76) and ""George and Mildred"" (1976–79). ""Rising Damp""'s star, Leonard Rossiter, also played the lead role in the BBC's highly popular ""The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin"" (1976–79). The decline in cinema attendance in this period meant that many of these series were turned into cinema films; the first film version of ""On the Buses"" (1969–73) was the biggest hit at the British box office in 1971. According to Jeff Evans, ""On"
"The video sales have won eight Gold Awards from the British Video Association, and the series still holds the record for being BBC Two's longest-running, highest-rated sitcom. In 2007 the series was voted 'Best Sci-Fi Show Of All Time' by the readers of ""Radio Times"" magazine. Editor Gill Hudson stated that this result had surprised them as 'the series had not given any new episodes this century'. In January 2017, Series XI was voted ""Best Returning TV Sitcom"" and ""Comedy of the Year"" for 2016 by readers for the British Comedy Guide. A year later Red Dwarf once again was"
"Emergency Ward 10 was first broadcast in 1957 on ITV and ran until 1967 and followed the life and loves of the staff and patients of the fictionalised Oxbridge General. ITV later followed this up with General Hospital which borrowed much from Emergency Ward 10 in terms of its themes and focus. The idea of a medical hospital as a suitable and popular setting for a soap opera continued to take root in the 1980s. Casualty, set in an A&E department, was first broadcast in 1986 and has since become the longest running medical drama in the world. At a"
"presented video clips from the 50 sitcoms that received the most votes. Each of the next ten weekly episodes, one hour in length, focused on one sitcom. In each episode, a different celebrity presenter advocated for a sitcom, delivering 20 reasons why it deserved viewers' votes. The show's writers and actors, as well as celebrity viewers, shared their own perspectives and memories. In the 90-minute series finale, transmitted live, Jonathan Ross announced the top sitcom to be ""Only Fools and Horses,"" with ""Blackadder"" and ""The Vicar of Dibley"" coming in second and third. Britain's Best Sitcom Britain's Best Sitcom was"
"for storylines planned for him later that year. Ian Beale has gone on to be the longest running character in the soap's history. Woodyatt confirmed his desire to remain with the show in 2010, during the show's 25th anniversary: ""Why would I want to leave when I'm not going to get the chance to portray even half the range of emotions I get to here in a one-off drama or a six-part series? And you're not going to get the same viewing figures either. You have your moments when things go wrong and you perhaps don't want to work with"
"million viewers - more than the entire population of Australia at the time. In 1988 ""Neighbours"" became the only television show to have its entire cast flown over to the UK to make an appearance at the Royal Variety Performance in front of the Queen. ""Neighbours"" has since become the longest running drama series in Australian television and the seventh longest running serial drama still on the air in the world. In 2005, ""Neighbours"" celebrated its 20th anniversary and over twenty former cast members returned for a special episode, which saw them sitting down to watch a documentary about Ramsay"
"since then, it has been broadcast year-round. Episodes air on ITV weekday evenings at 19:00, with a second Thursday episode at 20:00. The programme began broadcasting in high definition on 10 October 2011. ""Emmerdale"" is the United Kingdom's second-longest-running television soap opera (after ITV's ""Coronation Street""), and attracts an average of five to seven million viewers per episode. October 2012 marked the 40th anniversary of the show. During that month, the show made a live episode to mark the anniversary. ""Emmerdale Farm"" came about after creator Kevin Laffan was asked to write a lunchtime farming serial for ITV, as the"
"was first to admit that axing this series, and the soap opera ""Emergency Ward 10"" at the same time, were the two biggest mistakes he ever made. This revival was hosted by Jim Dale, with each episode being broadcast live. Two episodes were cancelled mid-broadcast due, apparently to a reported bomb scare. A one-off edition of ""Sunday Night at the London Palladium"" was broadcast in 1998, to celebrate Bruce Forsyth's 70th birthday. It included appearances by Diana Ross and Joe Longthorne. On 29 August 2010, ""Gareth Parnell's Sunday Night at the London Palladium"" was performed by the staff of the"
"years on television – its first incarnation (1956–2008) was the second longest-running programme on British television after ""Panorama"". Beginning in 1956 on Granada Television and ITV, the television series moved to Channel 4 and then to BBC2 before being discontinued in 2008. The programme was revived on Radio 4 in the run-up to the 2010 general election, and continued until 27 March 2016, when it was announced that this was its last Radio 4 episode. The programme's format was the same for both television and radio. On TV, while quotes were being read, they would appear on-screen as newspaper cuttings"
"first time the honour had been bestowed upon a collective instead of an individual or double act. In 2016 they also received a BAFTA in the Comedy and Comedy Entertainment Programme category. For its first 10 years, the programme was shown on BBC Two. In 2000, the BBC moved its nightly BBC One news bulletin, the ""BBC Nine O'Clock News"", from nine o'clock to ten o'clock (now known as the ""BBC News at Ten"") after ITV moved their long-running ten o'clock bulletin, ""News at Ten"", to eleven o'clock. This left a gap in the schedules, and ""Have I Got News"
"was featured on the ""30 Years of CITV"" documentary that aired on ITV on 29 December 2012 and featured interviews with Dinenage and Jones. The last episode of the series was a 30th anniversary special. Before that, there was ""The Best of How 2"" which aired on 18 August 1997. There was no series aired in 1998 but there was a spin-off series called ""How Goes 2"", which aired from 25 February to 15 April 1998. The series focused on Fred and Gareth going to different places each week, and the 8 shows featured segments from the first 6 year"
"the traditional breakfast that used to be served in British prisons, and the British slang for serving a prison sentence - ""Doing porridge"". ""Porridge"" was critically acclaimed and is widely considered to be one of the greatest British sitcoms of all time, with it being ranked No. 35 on the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes compiled by the British Film Institute in 2000. In 2004 ""Porridge"" placed seventh in a poll to find Britain's Best Sitcom. The series was followed by a 1978 sequel, ""Going Straight"", which saw Barker reprise his character as he tries to avoid going back to"
"around 52.5 million American viewers, making it the fifth most-watched series finale in television history, and the most-watched television episode of the 2000s decade. ""Friends"" received acclaim throughout its run, becoming one of the most popular television shows of all time. The series was nominated for 62 Primetime Emmy Awards, winning the Outstanding Comedy Series award in 2002 for its eighth season. The show ranked no. 21 on ""TV Guides 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time, and no. 7 on ""Empire"" magazine's The 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time. In 1997, the episode ""The One with the Prom"
"latter died. 50th Primetime Emmy Awards The 50th Primetime Emmy Awards were held on Sunday, September 13, 1998. It was broadcast on NBC. When ""Frasier"" was announced as the winner of Outstanding Comedy Series, Emmy history was made. The NBC sitcom became the first show to win one of the two main series prizes five consecutive years. This record has since been passed by ""The Daily Show with Jon Stewart"", whose current winning streak is ten years, but for the main two genres, it was not matched until 2014, when the ABC sitcom ""Modern Family"" won its fifth consecutive award"
"funeral in 1997 (32.1 million viewers) which were transmitted on both BBC One and ITV. An early television serial was ""The Grove Family"" on the BBC, which produced 148 episodes from 1954 to 1957. The programme was broadcast live and only a handful of recordings were retained in the archives. The UK's first twice-weekly serial was ITV's ""Emergency - Ward 10"", running from 1957 until 1967. In the 1960s ""Coronation Street"" revolutionised UK television and quickly became a British institution. On 17 September 2010, it became the world's longest-running television soap opera and was listed in ""Guinness World Records"". The"
"occasionally the subject of controversy for some of its darker story elements, but nevertheless received a number of awards, including the 1992 BAFTA for Best Comedy. The programme came 80th in the British Film Institute's 100 Greatest British Television Programmes. The series, originally shown on BBC One, is now available on DVD and is regularly repeated in the United Kingdom. Four episodes were remade for BBC Radio 2. The series inspired a novel, published in 1992, featuring the most memorable moments from the first two series and the first Christmas special. The series features the exploits and mishaps of irascible"
"screened World's Strongest Man between 2006-2009, and from 2011 to present. ""Rugby Union"" ""Cricket"" ""Motorsport"" ""Boxing"" ""Mixed Martial Arts"" ""Athletics"" In 1998, the channel began to show more risqué late-night programmes such as Compromising Situations, Hotline and the controversially explicit ""Sex and Shopping"". In 1999, there was a large increase in adult entertainment shown on the channel, including ""UK Raw"" and ""Red Shoe Diaries"", giving the channel a reputation for being home to hours of pornography. Adult entertainment, live football, and the 21:00 films were the main source of viewing for the channel at the time. As the broadcaster entered"
"in the summer for the Wimbledon Championships held for two weeks, broadcasting of the Olympic Games, Christmas and Easter period holidays and for bank holidays, also the FIFA World Cup and UEFA European Championship. On 26 March 2010, ""Doctors"" celebrated its 10th Anniversary and 1800th episode. Under the title ""Decade of Doctors"", the BBC aired five-minute programmes about the show after each day's episode during the anniversary week. On 16 February 2011, ""Doctors"" aired its 2,000th episode, ""Quarantine"", which was extended and ran for 60 minutes. From 17 September 2012 for 5 days, special red button episodes aired after the"
"breaking patient confidentiality and her sacking from the Mill (2007), Dr Nick West's car crash and later death (2008) and receptionist Vivien March's rape in 2008, which caused a stir in the media and received recognition at The British Soap Awards in 2009. With the departure of Dr Joe Fenton a new doctor was introduced, Dr Daniel Granger, the nephew of Dr Fenton. One of the first storylines for the character involved his gambling addiction. 2009 also saw the departure of long-standing major characters Ronnie, George and Bracken Woodson. In the soap's decade anniversary year in 2010, the longest standing"
"Link""'s 3.8m. Additionally, later in that autumn, due to the show's ever-rising popularity, a videogame based on the show was released for the PlayStation, PlayStation 2 and Microsoft Windows platforms. From 9 to 13 August 2010, five ""10th Anniversary Specials"" aired at the usual time on BBC One. The format has been licensed across the world, with many countries producing their own version. It is the 2nd most popular international franchise, behind only the ""Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?"" franchise, which also originated in the UK. In a ""New Scientist"" blog article, Erica Klarreich argues that there are only"
"Sunday Night at 10 Sunday Night At 10, also known as The Age of Swing, was a weekly hour long programme on BBC Radio 2 in the United Kingdom. Aired on Sunday evenings at 10pm, it featured big band music from the late 1930s and early 1940s through to the present day. Presented by jazz singer Clare Teal it regularly drew a weekly listening audience of 360,000. The programme was subsumed into a two-hour show after its content was merged with that of ""Big Band Special"" in September 2013. The programme began shortly after the conclusion of the news at"
"the relatively new and smaller WB network. ""Charmed""s premiere in 1998 helped ratings rise for The WB, with ""TV Guide""s Mark Schwed noting that the network's viewing figures were way up than the previous year. For its first three seasons, ""Charmed"" was the second-highest rated series on The WB, behind ""7th Heaven"". During its fifth season, the series became the highest-rated Sunday night program in The WB's history. ""Charmed"" was the first primetime television show about a coven of witches. Following the broadcast of the season eight episode ""Payback's a Witch"" in January 2006, ""Charmed"" became the longest running hour-long"